Warrior
by Laura Schiller
Summary: Tag to "Nightmare in Silver". Writing in her journal, Clara wonders what Grand Marshal Skaldak would think if he could see her now ... not to mention what the Doctor thinks.


Warrior

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

I didn't know it would be so easy to shoot someone.

Well, some_thing_ I suppose would be a better word. I don't know if those Cybermen were ever people, but they definitely weren't when we shot them down. Still, I didn't think it would be so easy. Unless you count Artie's water pistols, I've never held a gun in my life.

What was the Doctor thinking, putting me in charge of the platoon? I had no bloody clue what I was doing. All I did was try to act like the army commanders in the movies – hold my head up, snap orders, get them all to a safe place, and try to keep the Captain from blowing up the planet. And the one thing I tried to do – electrify the moat – did absolutely _nothing_ to help. If the Doctor hadn't shorted out the Cyberplanner just in time, we all would have been killed. Or upgraded. And I would have been powerless to stop it.

Still, I tried. I picked up that gun. I walked past dead soldiers and didn't even look at them. Could I have done that before I met the Doctor?

I wonder what Skaldak would think if he could see me now. Back on that submarine, the only reason he talked to me was because I wasn't a warrior. Am I one now? I don't want to be. I don't want to be like that Captain, who would have killed the planet and everyone on it just to stop one Cyberman. But if I'm going to keep on travelling with the Doctor, I can't just be the scared little girl who hides behind him while people suffer.

Losing Angie and Artie and doing nothing to stop it would have been worse than anything. I can still see them, with those empty eyes. I should never have let them drag me into this. Keeping my job isn't worth putting them in danger. The Doctor is – was? – a grandfather. He should have known better!

Get a grip, Oswald. All he wanted was to bring us to an amusement park. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that stupid cow of a time machine that took us to the wrong place

The Doctor. There's another problem I can't solve. Was it really the Cyberplanner who told me he liked me? And why do I care?

I didn't believe it at the time. That's why I slapped him. I thought it was just the dirtiest trick the Cyperplanner could come up with. It was a nightmare, seeing that thing looking out at me through my Doctor's face, speaking with his voice. It sounded so real.

I still don't believe it. I can't and I _won't, _and here are the reasons why:

1. No matter how … _not_-old he looks, he's still over 1,000. I must be like a little kid to him, or worse, like an insect.

2. We're not even the same species. He's got two hearts, so who knows what else is different? Let's not even go there. Moving on.

3. Even if he did like me, the real Doctor would've come up with something so much more original than calling me "funny and pretty".

Not like Porridge – the Emperor, I should call him. When he asked me to marry him, he used almost the same words … but then again, he really meant them.

4. When I tested him again later, he said I was too short, too bossy, and my nose was all funny. I _am_ short, and my nose _is_ funny. It turns up like a ski jump. That was the real Doctor, all right.

Nothing wrong with being bossy, though. I know for a fact that he likes it.

5. I like to think I know him, but I really don't. He never talks to me about the important things – his home planet, his childhood, the family he has or used to have. When I ask him, he goes rambling on about moons made of honey and dogs with no noses, anything to distract me. Sort of like me, when people used to ask about Mum. He told the Old God of Akhaten that he'd lost things it would never understand. I think, after losing so much, he'd die rather than admit to falling in love again.

Whoever she was, he'd hug her, kiss her on the forehead, leave flowers and Jammy Dodgers on her nightstand, buy back her mother's ring, and win a chess match against _himself_ to rescue her. Anything except telling her how he feels.

That's my theory, anyway. For his sake, I hope I'm wrong.

There's got to be someone out there for him, but it can't be me. I'm going to fight this. I have to be his friend, and nothing but his friend, because it's friendship that we need if we're going to survive.

And if that makes me a warrior, I suppose it can't be helped.


End file.
